How will a party that suspends an outstanding peace campaigner like Diane Abbott be judged by history?

“They have collectively failed to appreciate the reputational and electoral damage the decision to remove the whip from Diane Abbott for a second time is likely to have on the public’s respect for the government and the Labour Party.”

Carol Turner recalls Diane Abbott’s long history as a peace campaigner, arguing that she will be remembered as a champion of causes which taken collectively are a measure of the right of any society to be called civilised.

Diane Abbott MP is rightly known as a ground-breaking figure who has campaigned throughout her 38 years in parliament against racism in all its forms. She is one of – probably the – best known and most respected British black figures today. So it is all the more extraordinary that the Prime Minister of Britain, and the leader of a political party which proclaims itself anti-racist, should find himself presiding over the suspension of the Mother of Parliament.

Is Labour blind to the lesson of last year?

This is the second time Diane has had the Labour whip withdrawn, forcing her out of the Parliamentary Labour Party. The first, in 2023, saw her return to the Labour benches by popular demand, in time to stand as a Labour MP at last year’s election. Despite a year or more of public attacks from inside as well as outside the party, she was returned as MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington with over 15,000 more votes than her nearest rival, on a majority turn out.

A year in, as Labour’s support and Keir Starmer’s personal ratings continue to drop, it seems his political advisers, members of the PLP, and the Labour Party’s ruling bodies are blind to the lesson of last year. They have collectively failed to appreciate the reputational and electoral damage the decision to remove the whip from Diane Abbott for a second time is likely to have on the public’s respect for the government and the Labour Party.

There are many examples of Starmer stepping in to modify or even overrule the actions of his MPs and his party. Shouldn’t this be one of them?

Much more than a single issue campaigner

As many of us know, Diane is far from a single issue campaigner. She has a long record as a campaigner for women’s rights and for peace and nuclear disarmament. At a recent ceremony to mark her Honorary Fellowship at Newnham, one of Cambridge University’s first women’s colleges, Diane said: ‘Newham, although I did not realise it at the time, was tremendously formative for me… it taught me was that women can do anything.’

Throughout the 1980s Diane appeared on Greenham Common and CND platforms. She has been a regular guest at Labour CND and CND conferences, demos, and Labour Party fringe meetings, since then.

When the then chair of CND and I set up the Committee to Stop War in the Gulf in 1990, Diane was an early and prominent supporter. She spoke out against the invasion and the horrors perpetrated on the people of Iraq, in parliament, on the streets, and in the media. In the 2000s as the US and Britain invaded then occupied Iraq, she spoke, marched, and rallied her colleagues on the side of peace again.

Alert to the dangers of rearmament, Diane has been an early opponent of military spending increases. In a blog for CND in May, Diane took up the banner of welfare not warfare, arguing the government was making all the wrong choices, by implementing austerity measures and increasing military spending.

Always attuned to the mood in the country, Diane argued that ‘a very large proportion of the public are angry and frightened by a drive towards rearmament and the fact that it is being paid for by the poorest in this society and internationally.’ She pointed out: ‘This is not a discussion confined to activists and policy wonks. At least two national newspapers have made the link… TV news and social media are full of the effects of the welfare cuts.’

Social justice at home and internationally

From the moment she entered parliament, Diane has used that platform to campaign for social justice at home and internationally. A few of the most recent examples include support for recognising the state of Palestine and against arms exports to Israel, support for a wealth tax, and defending universal credit and disability benefits against cuts, as well as peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo and human rights in Sudan.

History judges us all, not just for what we say – but for what we do and how we do it. Diane Abbott will go down in the history books alongside Doreen Lawrence, Claudia Jones, Stuart Hall, Benjamin Zephaniah, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and of course Bernie Grant, her parliamentary colleague until his death in 2000 – and many others who have risen to the top of their field despite prejudice, discrimination, and the many structural barriers that still exist in 21^st century Britain.

In decades to come, Diane will be remembered not only as an anti-racism campaigner but also as a champion of many progressive causes and movements which, taken together, are a measure of whether or not a society has the right to call itself civilised. The question remains: how will Labour been seen?

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• You can sign a petition in support of Diane Abbott here.
• Carol Turner is Vice Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). You can follow her on Twitter/X, and CND on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X and TikTok.
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